layed of Duke William and other
noted personages; a model of a British soldier, in the stiff costume
of the same age; and some grotto-works, serve to indicate the taste of
a former owner, and were perhaps intended to rival the neighbouring
exhibition at Don Saltero's. These buns have afforded a competency,
and even wealth; to four generations of the same family; and it is
singular, that their delicate flavour, lightness and richness, have
never been successfully imitated. The present proprietor told me, with
exultation, that George the Second had often been a customer of the
shop; that the present King, when Prince George, and often during his
reign, had stopped and purchased his buns; and that the Queen, and all
the Princes and Princesses, had been among his occasional customers.

A little further to the west, is a vulgar sign of _Nell Gwyn_, to
whose female sensibility, and influence on royalty, are ascribed the
foundation of the adjoining hospital for invalid soldiers. If the
mistresses of Princes always made a similar use of their ascendency,
and were to teach their royal lovers to respect the duties of
humanity, and build hospitals for the victims of their idiotic
ambition, the world would complain less of their extravagancies and
vices. The excellent hearts of women might warrant such an
expectation; but, unhappily, this depraved portion of the sex
generally part with their feminine sensibilities, at the same time
that they part with their character and modesty. Contemned, despised,
or neglected by the world, they become haters of their species, and
too commonly make use of their power, to avenge on society the
personal affronts which they are compelled to endure.

The approach to the hospital was indicated by the appearance of
numbers of mutilated soldiers. It afflicted me, to see young men of
two or three and twenty, some of whom had lost both their arms, and
others both their legs! I learnt, on enquiry, that a few living
objects of this description are all that now remain of regiments of
their comrades! The rest had been killed in battle, or had died of
fatigue, or camp diseases! The querulous _why_, and _for what_, still
crossed my imagination; but I again referred such busy doubts to
ministers! I _may_ be wrong; they _cannot_ be wrong! No! they _must_
be right, or such things would not be. I confess, notwithstanding,
that it deeply afflicts me that such things _are_; yet how is the play
of human passions to